"Labre, cultive, cogi
Con piedad, con fe, con celo,
Tierras, virtudes y cielo."
Spain seems actually skied over with the wings of guardian angels. The
traditional tutelar of the nation, Santiago, counts for less,
especially in the south and centre of the Peninsula, than might be
expected, and was long since officially superseded by the Virgin; but
cities, hamlets, families, individuals, all have their protecting
saints. Some are martyrs, some bishops, some apostles, while Cordova
rests secure beneath the shining plumes of the angel Raphael. Towns
and townlets hold festivals for their celestial patrons, honoring them
with fairs, horse-races, processions, dances, and whatsoever else may
be appropriate to the season and characteristic of the locality, as
ball games, bull-fights, or even a miracle play. Only Seville,
mirth-loving Seville, who makes holiday on the slightest provocation,
can never invite her two beautiful guardians, Santa Justa and Santa
Rufina, to a jubilee. These holy maidens used to keep a pottery booth
in Triana, now the gypsy quarter of the city, where, refusing to
worship the Roman Venus, they won the crown of martyrdom. But their
industrious habits cling to them still, and, by night and by day,
while the centuries pass, they uphold the Giralda. An anointed vision,
like Murillo's, may see their graceful forms hovering in mid-air on
either side of the famous tower, which their strong brown arms hold
firm even in tempests. If the ladies should let go, the Giralda would
fall, and so the Sevillians are driven to the ungallant course of
ignoring these really useful patrons and gadding off to adjacent towns
whose saints are at leisure to be entertained.
[Illustration: A SPANISH MONK]
By the eternal contradiction that prevails in all things Spanish, it
has come to pass that Madrid, the elegant capital and royal residence,
is under the guardianship of a peasant saint. Here, in the eleventh
century, Isidro was born, say the priests, of poor but Catholic
parents. If not precisely a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, he
was next door to that humble estate, being a digger of wells and
cellars. He dug with such piety that God aided him by miracles,
causing troublesome rocks to melt like wax at the touch of his spade,
and springs of healing water to leap in the pits of his fashioning. He
was a tiller of the ground, besides, a hireling farm servant, whose
agricultural methods, though seemingly irregular, caused his master's
granaries to overflow. As he went to the fields in the fresh spring
mornings, the young Isidro would scatter handfuls of seed for the
birds, saying, "Eat, God's little birds, for when our Lord looks forth
in dawn, He looks upon us all." And as he dropped the wheat and barley
in the furrows, ever he murmured, "This for God, and this for us; this
for the birds, and this for the ants." "For the ants, too?" mockingly
asked the rustics who planted beside him, but Isidro steadfastly
replied, "For the ants, too, since they are God's ants, and His royal
bounty is for all His household." No wonder that the Almighty had
Isidro's fields in special charge, sending sun and rain in due season
that the harvest might suffice for every claimant. Such divine care
was the more necessary, because this dreamy plough-boy spent most of
his time in the churches, or on his knees in the shadow of the fruit
trees, until his profane companions called him Lazybones.
Isidro was no effective patron of Madrid as yet, but ran away from the
Moors, when they invaded the city, finding farm service in a
neighboring village. Here he married a maiden whose lovely soul,
according to Lope de Vega, shone through her guileless face like a
painting through its glass. She was no less devout than her husband,
and went every evening to trim the altar in a lonely shrine of the
Virgin. There was a stream to be crossed on the way, and in times of
freshet Our Lady would appear in person and lead her by the hand over
the tops of the waves. Such dainty stepping as it must have been! And
once, when Isidro accompanied his wife, they both crossed in a boat
suddenly improvised from her mantilla, which was not a thread the
worse for the experience.
The miracle-working power that developed in San Isidro was first
exercised, as became a farmer, on suffering beasts and bad weather.
His early influence over water grew more and more pronounced, rain
refreshing the thirsty fields at his bidding, and medicinal fountains
gushing from rocks at the stroke of his hoe. And when, one sunshiny
morning, his wife let their baby boy slip from her arms into the
depths of the well and ran in distress to her husband, the saint, who
for once was working on the farm, did not scold her, as the priestly
authors seem to think would have been the natural course, but calmly
said, "My sister, what is there to cry about?" And when, after a
season of prayer, these exemplary parents proceeded to the well, its
waters had risen to the brink, lifting the little John, as on a
silver-tissue cushion, safe to their embrace. Isidro still retained
his youthful peculiarities as a laborer, often praying all day long in
the churches, while his yoke of oxen did the ploughing just as well
without him. On one occasion, when he arrived too late for mass, the
gates of heaven opened to his vision, as he knelt before the closed
church door, and he was permitted to witness a celestial mass, where
Christ was both priest and wafer, with choirs of angels chanting the
holy service. Even his charities cost him little, for when the _olla_
of vegetables and fish, that his wife made every Saturday for the
poor, had all been eaten, a word from Isidro was enough to replenish
the pot. If he emptied his sack of corn on the snow for a flock of
hungry pigeons, the sack was full when he reached the mill; and when
he threshed his master's wheat a second and a third time for the
beggars, the very chaff turned into golden grain.
His best quality, which almost makes his cult desirable in Spain,
continued to be his love for animals, especially for birds. These sang
their sweetest songs as he passed by, and often flew down from the
poplar branches to brush their little wings against his blouse. And
he, who had raised his master's daughter from the dead, did not
disdain to work miracles of healing and of life on maltreated horses.
Madrid would do well to give her guardian saint a season ticket to
the bull-ring. Even the despised and cudgelled ass had a share in his
protection. A sacrilegious wolf that thought to make a meal of
Isidro's donkey, left to graze outside a church where the saint had
gone to pray, was struck dead--perhaps by the donkey's heels. This
kindly rustic, who had separated from his wife for greater sanctity,
died on St. Andrew's Day and was buried in the cemetery of St.
Andrew's Church in Madrid. Such sepulture was not to his liking, and
twice his ghost appeared to ask that the body might be removed to the
church, as was presently done, all the bells of St. Andrew's ringing
of their own accord to give it welcome. The tomb immediately began to
work miracles, and Isidro became such a favorite with the people that
when, in 1212, a shepherd guided Alfonso VIII, lost with his vanguard
in the wild passes of the Sierra Morena, to the great battle of Las
Navas de Tolosa, where the armies of the Holy Cross broke forever the
dominion of the Moors in Central Spain, nothing would do but the story
that this shepherd was Isidro himself. Above the tomb of the saint a
chapel was erected, perhaps by Alfonso, perhaps by _Isabel la
Catolica_. There seems to be a conflict of authorities here, but all
testimonies agree that the angels used to come down and sing in the
chapel Saturday afternoons.
Madrid formally accepted Isidro as patron in the summer of 1232, when
the labors of the husbandmen, on the point of perishing from drought,
were saved by the body of the Holy Peasant, which, borne in priestly
procession, called down floods of rain; but it was not until the times
of Philip III, some four centuries later, that the actual canonization
of Isidro was granted by Rome. On May 15, 1620, the _Plaza Mayor_,
that handsome square which has been the theatre of so many
tournaments, executions, and _autos de fe_, the scene, two years
later, of the beatification of Loyola, was inaugurated by a splendid
festival in honor of San Isidro. From that day to this his worship has
not waned. The miracle-working bones, which were carried to the bitter
death-bed of Philip III, and comforted the passing of the great and
generous spirit of Charles III, are still held to be more potent than
physicians. Churches, oratories, and chapels have been built to him
all over the Peninsula, the Franciscan Friars founded a convent of San
Isidro in Rome, and his name is a part of our new geography lesson in
the Antilles and the Philippines. Only four years ago his urn was
borne in penitential procession through Madrid, with double
supplications for rain on the parched country, and for a swift and
happy ending of the Cuban war. All priestly, military, civic, and
governmental pomp went to make up that stately escort, the ladies of
Madrid showering the train as it passed beneath their balconies with
flowers, poems, and _confetti_. The saint did what he could. The
procession had been so skilfully timed that the rains began that very
night, but the Cuban war was a matter out of his province. His
dealings had always been with water, not with blood.
There is significance in this devotion of proud Castile to San Isidro.
Spain is essentially as democratic as America. Her proverbs tell the
story: "Many a man gets to heaven in tow breeches;" "Do what your
master bids you, and sit down with him at table;" "Nobody is born
learned, and even bishops are made of men;" "Since I am a man I may
come to be Pope;" "The corpse of the Pope takes no more ground than
that of the sacristan;" "Every man is the son of his own works."
"Said the leaf to the flower: 'O fie!
You put on airs indeed!
But we sprang, both you and I,
From the selfsame little brown seed.'"
Pedler, porter, beggar treat you as social equals and expect a full
return of courtesy. It is told in Madrid how a great diplomatic
personage not long ago was eating his picnic luncheon in a hired
carriage. The driver, lunching also, leaned back from his seat,
clinked glasses, and drank the gentleman's health. The dignitary
glared with astonishment and wrath. "Man! I am the Imperial Ambassador
of Nation So-and-So." "What of it?" returned the driver, taking
another bite of his peppery Spanish sausage; "I am the Head Hostler of
Stables Such-and-Such."
Again and again, in recent times as in ancient, have the rank and file
of the Spanish nation asserted their dignity of manhood. An edict of
Charles III, forbidding the Madrilenos to muffle themselves in their
beloved long cloaks and hide their faces under their big slouch hats,
raised a furious riot in the capital. Should a king dictate the
fashion of a man's garments? And when the stupid weakness of Charles
IV and the baseness of his son Fernando had delivered Spain over to
Napoleon, when French armies held her fortresses, and Murat, with
twenty-five thousand troops, ruled Madrid by logic of steel and iron,
it was the Spanish people who, from Asturias to Andalusia, sprang to
the defence of a country abandoned by princes, councils, and
grandees. The Spanish people, not the Spanish nobles, preserved the
independence of the nation and actually broke the career of the
Corsican conqueror. The Italian king, Amadeo, so much better than his
fortunes, was welcomed at Valencia in 1871 with simple verses, spoken
by a child, that breathe even from their opening stanza this native
spirit of democracy:--
"The High Lord of the Heavens
Created men one day,
All mortal and all equal,
All shapen out of clay;
For God recked not of nations,
Of white and black and brown,
But on His human children
Impartially looked down."
It is not then so strange as it appears at first hearing that a Piers
Plowman should be patron of Madrid.
From Alfonso VIII to Alfonso XIII, a matter of some seven centuries,
Isidro has been in high repute with royalty. The "Catholic Kings" made
him rich gifts; Philip II, bigot of bigots, cherished an especial
veneration for the ghostly protector who had brought his delicate
childhood safely through smallpox and epileptic seizures; the
passion-wasted Philip IV did him public homage; Charles the Bewitched
made a solemn progress to his shrine to thank him for recovery from
illness; even the bright young Bourbon, Philip V, had scarcely arrived
in Madrid before he hastened to worship the efficacious body of San
Isidro. The urn has been opened at intervals to give their successive
Majesties of Spain the grewsome joy of gazing on the bones, and it
has been the peculiar privilege of Spanish queens, on such occasions,
to renew the costly cerements. The devotion of the present regent to
these relics keeps pace with that of her predecessors.
Where royalty leads, aristocracy is swift to follow, and Isidro has a
gorgeous wardrobe of embroidered standards, palls, canopies, burial
cloths, and everything that a skeleton could require, but "for a' that
and a' that" the laboring people of Castile never forget that the
Canonized Farmer especially belongs to them. His fortnight-long
_fiesta_ is the May outing of the rustic population all about Madrid.
We will start on this pilgrimage from the _Puerta del Sol_, because
everything in Madrid starts from the _Puerta del Sol_. From this great
open parallelogram in the centre of the city, surrounded by lofty
hotels and Government buildings, bordered with shops and cafes,
brightened with fountains, thronged with trams, carriages, people,
always humming with voices, always surging with movement, run ten of
the principal streets of the capital. The _Alcala_, most fashionable
of promenades, and _San Jeronimo_, beloved of wealthy shoppers,
conduct to the noble reaches of parks and _paseos_ in the east; the
handsome _Arenal_ and historic _Calle Mayor_ lead west to the royal
palace, with its extensive gardens known as the _Campo del Moro_;
_Montera_, with two less elegant avenues, points to the north, where
one may find the university, the Protestant churches, and the tragic
site of the _Quemadero_; and three corresponding streets open the way
to the south, with its factories, hospitals, old churches, and
world-famed _Rastro_, or rag fair.
[Illustration: A SEVILLE STREET]
But during the early days of the _Romeria_, which begins on May 15,
all the throbbing tide of life pours toward the southwest, for the
goal of the pilgrimage, the Hermitage of San Isidro, built over one of
his miraculous wells by the empress of Charles I, in gratitude for a
cure experienced by her august husband after drinking of the waters,
stands on the farther bank of the Manzanares. The trams, literally
heaped with clinging humanity, pass out by the _Calle Mayor_ and cross
the _Plaza Mayor_. The innumerable 'buses and cabs make a shorter cut,
but all varieties of vehicle are soon wedged together in the broad
thoroughfare of Toledo. Here we pass the big granite church of San
Isidro el Real, once in possession of the Jesuits, but on their
expulsion from Spain, in 1767, consecrated to the Santo Labrador. His
body was borne thither, with all solemn ceremonial, from the chapel in
St. Andrew's; and his poor wife, who had also been sainted, by a
courteous Spanish afterthought, under the attractive title of _Maria
de la Cabeza_, Mary of the Head, was allowed to lay her celebrated
skull beneath the same roof,--a greater liberty than he had permitted
her during the latter half of their earthly lives. The Madrid
Cathedral, hard by the royal palace, is still in slow process of
building, the work being hampered and delayed for lack of funds,
although her Majesty sets a devout example by contributing $300 a
month. Meanwhile, San Isidro el Real serves as the cathedral church of
the diocese.
This _Calle de Toledo_, where Isidro dug several of his medicinal
wells, is always gay with arcades and booths and drapers' shops; but
now, during the _Romeria_, it is a veritable curbstone market, where
oranges, sashes, brooms, mantles, picture frames, saucepans, fiddles,
mantillas, china, jackets, umbrellas, fans, dolls, bird-cages,
paintings of saints, and photographs of ballet dancers are all cried
and exhibited, hawked and held under nose, in one continuous tumult.
As we approach the bare mass of masonry known as the Gate of Toledo,
we cast, for all our festival mood, a clouded glance in the direction
of the barbarous slaughter-houses of Madrid. Here the stronger beasts
are blinded by the thrust of darts, and also hamstrung, to render them
helpless under the deliberate butchery of their tormentors, who often
amuse themselves by a little bull-fight practice with the agonized
creatures before striking the final blow--a place of such atrocious
cruelties that even the seasoned nerves of an Austrian surgeon
recently visiting it gave way, and he fainted as he looked. There is
work for San Isidro here.
The jam of equipages on the Bridge of Toledo gives us abundant time to
observe the statue of the Holy Peasant, in a stone niche, lifting his
baby from the well, and the companion statue of Mary of the Skull. And
there is the Manzanares to look at, that sandy channel along which
dribble a few threads of water--threads that the washerwomen of Madrid
seek after like veins of silver. Small boys are wading from one bank
to the other, hardly troubling themselves to roll up their trousers.
It is said that Philip IV, surveying his pompous bridge across the
Manzanares, was wickedly advised by one of his courtiers to sell the
bridge or else buy a river. It is a curious bit of irony to hold the
festival of the Water Saint beside a river bed almost as dry as his
bones.
But the crowd has now become so mad and merry that it distracts
attention alike from architecture and physical geography. Will all the
dexterity of foot-police and mounted guards ever succeed in
disentangling this snarl of equipages? Who cares? Everybody is
laughing. Everybody, too, is helping, so far as lungs can help. A
daring Aragonese, with a blue and white checked handkerchief knotted
about his head and a scarlet blanket over his shoulders, tries to dash
across the bridge and rejoin his screaming children. He stumbles
before a jovial omnibus, whose four horses, adorned with beribboned
straw hats, gaze coyly out from under the torn brims like so many
metamorphosed Maud Mullers. A distant guard roars a warning. The crowd
bellows in sympathy. A liveried coachman rears his spirited pair of
bays. A cock-hatted gypsy, with half his tribe packed into his cart,
tries to follow suit, and tugs savagely at the stubborn mouths of
mules whose heads are liberally festooned with red and green tassels.
In front of these safely passes the Aragonese, only to bring up
against the great wheel of a picnic wagon, whose occupants, mostly
senoritas in the sunrise Philippine shawls, thrust out their pretty
heads, all crowned with flowers instead of hats, and rain down saucy
salutations. The crowd chimes in with every variety of voluble
impudence. He catches at the long gold fringe of the nearest shawl,
saves himself from falling at the price of a shriek of wrath from the
senorita, plunges desperately on, is struck by a cab horse, the poor
beast being half blinded by the tickling plumes that droop over eyes
and nose, and amid volleys of ridicule and encouragement reels to the
shelter of the sidewalk. But a very precarious shelter it is, so
narrow that the lads are positively obliged to fling their arms about
the lasses to hold the fluttering skirts back from peril of wheels and
hoofs. Everywhere what audacity, what fun, what color, and what noise!
Troops on troops of foot travellers, usually in family groups, and
often stained with the dust of an all-day tramp! The wives generally
carry the hampers, and the husbands sometimes shoulder the babies.
Squads of young fellows frolic along, each with his supply of
provisions tied up in a gaudy handkerchief. The closer the nudging the
better they like it; a slap from a girlish hand is almost as good as a
kiss. Isidro knew all about it in his day. But this clownish jollity
grows rougher and rougher, and the crack and sting from a coachman's
whip tempt a reply with the pilgrim's staff. The guards, hoarse and
purple, wipe their dripping brows. It is early afternoon yet, too, and
the larking and license are as nothing to what may be expected before
midnight.
It is a little better when, at last, the bridge is left behind.
Turning to the northwest, the dusty road runs on beside the river and
beneath the bluffs lined with rowdyish folk, who shout down greetings
to their acquaintances and compliments to the ladies, toward the
_ermita_. A certain Juan de Vargas, riding over this same route one
day, lifted his eyes to the uplands to see how his farm-hand, Isidro,
was getting on with the ploughing. Blessed Isidro! Before and after
went two stalwart young angels, still in shining white, each driving a
celestial yoke of oxen.
Times have changed. The sight that greets our eyes is emphatically
human--a great country fair, a pandemonium of rude, good-natured
revelry. The beggars who have been chasing the carriage, the cripples
outstripping the rest, thrust withered arms, ulcerous legs, and all
manner of profitable deformities into our very faces as we alight,
even clutching at the coins with which we pay the coachman. We make
our way, as best we can in the rough press, between two rows of
booths toward the church. There is the usual Spanish variety of penny
toys on sale--balls, baskets, whips, kites, jumping-jacks, balloons,
and every other conceivable trifle admitting of the colors red and
yellow. But the great traffic is in those articles especially
consecrate to San Isidro--frosted cakes, probably made after the
recipe of _Maria de la Cabeza_, clay vessels of every shape and size
for carrying away the healing waters, and, first and foremost,
_pitos_, or whistles. The priests would have us believe that San
Isidro was forever droning psalms, but ploughmen know a ploughman's
music, and the sacred whistles lead the sales in the _Romeria_. It is
impiety not to purchase at least one of these, and the more devout you
are, the more _pitos_ will you buy. The Infanta Isabel, aunt of his
Little Majesty, fills her emblazoned coach every year with these
shrill pipes in all their variety of queer disguises--fans, birds,
puffing grotesques, and, above all, paper flowers. He is no lover
worth the having who does not bring his sweetheart a San Isidro rose
with a _pito_ for a stem. The ear-torture of an immense fair-ground
delighting in an infinity of whistles may be left to the sympathetic
imagination. We cling to the memory of Burns, and bear for his bonny
sake what we could hardly endure for any such sham laborer as Isidro.
The hearing is not the only sense to do penance in this pilgrimage.
The Water Saint has never thought to work a miracle of cleanliness
upon his peasant votaries, and the smell that bursts out upon us from
the opening doors of the church might put us to flight, were flight
still possible. But, caught in the human current, we are swept on into
the gilded, candle-lighted, foul-aired oratory, with its effigies of
Santo Labrador and Santa Labradora. All day long the imperious ringing
of the bell at the shortest of intervals has been calling one company
of the faithful after another up the bare brown hill to that
unventilated temple. When there is no squeezing room left for even a
dwarf from the pygmy show, the doors are closed, the bell is silenced,
and the rustics are marshalled in rapid procession before the altar,
where they pay a penny each, receive a cheap print of San Isidro, and
kiss the mysterious, glass-cased relic which a businesslike young
ecclesiastic touches hastily to their lips. The frank sound of the
kissing within is accompanied by the tooting of _pitos_ without. We
stand at one side, looking at the priests and wondering how their
consciences are put together, but half ashamed to watch with heretic
eyes the tears of joy, the fervors of prayer, the ecstasies of faith,
that are to be seen in many of these simple, passionate faces filing
by. Here comes a little girl treading as if on air and clasping her
picture of the saint to her lips, brows, and heart with such abandon
of delighted adoration as one must go to Spain to see.
Released from the Hermitage, we fill our lungs with sweeter breath,
give skirts a vigorous shake in the vain hope that we may not carry
away too many deserters from the insect retinue of our recent
associates, and turn down toward the river. Our short cut leads us
among heaps and heaps of bales packed with the graceful clay jars. How
many an anxious mother will trudge her weary miles across this dry
Castilian steppe, bearing with all her other burdens a _botija_ of the
healing water to some little sufferer at home! Wonderful water,
warranted to make whole the lame, the blind, the deaf, the dumb, and
put to rout all ills that flesh is heir to, especially fevers, tumors,
erysipelas, paralysis, and consumption! It is as potent to-day as when
it first gushed from the earth at the bidding of the young Isidro, for
did it not work a notable cure, as late as 1884, on the Infanta Dona
Paz de Bourbon, sister of Alphonso XII?
We linger a few minutes at the edge of the bluff, looking down upon
the animated scene below, from which rises the hum as of an
exaggerated beehive. The long green stretch of valley meadow is one
wave of restless color. Thickly dotted with booths for refreshment,
for sale of the San Isidro wares, for penny shows, farces, wax
figures, and all manner of cheap entertainments, it still has space
for dancers, wrestlers, _pelota_ players, for swings, stilts, and
merry-go-rounds, and, above all, for the multitude of promenaders,
sleepers, and feasters. The bright May sunshine gleams and dazzles on
the soldiers' helmets, flashes out all the hues and tints of the
varied costumes, and even lends a grace to the brown patches on the
browner tents. The tossing of limbs in the wild, free dances, the
flutter of the red and yellow flags, the picturesque grouping on the
grass of families, complete to dog and donkey, around the platter of
homely fare and the skin bottle of wine--all this makes a panorama on
which one would gladly gaze for hours.
Going down into the heart of the festivity, the interest still grows.
We enter one of the cleanest _cantinas_ and invest a _peseta_ in a
bottle of sarsaparilla, not for our own drinking, having seen the
water in which the glasses are washed, but as a protection against the
horde of beggars and the gypsy fortune tellers. It works like a charm.
As we respond to the whining appeals with the civilities of social
greeting and an offered glass of our innocent beverage, the ragged
petitioners are straightway transformed into ladies and gentlemen.
They draw themselves erect, quaff the cup to our long life and
happiness, discuss in self-respecting tones the weather and the fete,
and then, without another hint of solicitation, bid us courteous
farewells. We mean to take out a patent on the sarsaparilla treatment
of Spanish mendicancy.
The tent itself is, like the rest, shabby and tumbledown, furnished
with rough tables and benches, where cadets are playing dominos as
they drink, and two country sweethearts are delectably eating what
appears to be a sardine omelette off the same cracked plate. A clumsy
lantern hangs overhead, racks of bottles are fastened up along the
canvas walls, and all about the trampled earth floor stand water jars,
great bowls of greens, and baskets of the crusty Spanish bread. A pale
young Madrileno drops in for a glass of wine, but before indulging has
the shy little rustic who serves him take a sip, languidly begging her,
"Do me the favor to sweeten my drink." The yellow cigarette-stains
show on his white fingers as he pats her plump bare arm. The child,
for she is scarcely more, and as brown as an acorn, responds to these
amenities by giving the smiling exquisite alternate bites of her hunk
of goat's-milk cheese, while her mother keeps a sharp eye on them
both.
Comedy and tragedy are busy all about us. A newly arrived family plods
wearily by in ludicrous procession, headed by a tall father carrying a
baby and closed by a short child carrying a cat. A showy man of middle
age, playing the gallant to an overdressed brunette, is suddenly
confronted by his furious wife in boy's attire, so unluckily well
disguised that, before recognizing her, he has replied to her rush of
invective with a blow which bids fair to make one of her eyes, at
least, blacker than those of her rival. Traditional ballads are
trolled, popular songs are echoed from group to group, and, despite
bad odors, fleas, and whistles, we are reluctant to leave. But the
afternoon grows late, the _Arganda_ and _Valdepenas_ are beginning to
burn in the southern blood, an occasional flourish of cudgels or of
fists sends the police scurrying across the field, and, being nothing
if not discreet, we pay our parting respects to San Isidro.
Coming home by way of the _Prado_ and passing the proud shaft of
yellow-brown granite that towers far above its enclosing cypress
trees, as glory above death, we are reminded that this gala month has
brought another _fiesta_ to Madrid. Every second of May the capital
commemorates with solemn masses, with stately civic processions, and a
magnificent military review, the patriots who fell fighting in the
streets on that terrible Monday of 1808, _El Dos de Mayo_, which
brought to pass the war of independence. One may read of that fierce
carnage in the vivid pages of Galdos or behold it in the lurid
paintings of Goya. To see once is to see forever that line of French
soldiery, with steady musket at shoulder, but with eyes bent on the
ground, while they shoot down squad after squad of their defenceless
victims. In pools of blood lie the contorted bodies, with heads and
breasts horribly torn by crimson wounds, while of those who wait their
turn to fall beside them some cover the eyes, one stupidly gnaws his
hands, one kneels and wildly peers from under his shaggy hair into
the very muzzle of the gun before him, one flings back his head with a
savage grin, half of fright and half of courage, one desperately
strips bare his breast and in agony of horror glares upon the guns,
but the most are crouching, shuddering, sinking--and all only an item
in the awful cost that the Spanish people have paid for Spanish
liberties. The celebration of 1899 was no less brilliant than usual,
although many of the Madrid papers spoke bitterly of the shadow that
the disastrous first of May must henceforth cast on the glorious
Second. It is indeed gall and wormwood to all Spain that the Manila
defeat so nearly coincides with the proudest day in Spanish annals.
The saint of _El Dos de Mayo_ is Saint Revolution, as democratic in
one way as Saint Agriculture in another. When these two patrons of
Madrid understand how to work in fellowship, when there comes a
Government in Spain that cares chiefly to promote the welfare of the
laboring people, the world may discover anew the vitality and noble
quality of this long-suffering nation.
We saw the _Romeria_ once more, driving through late in the evening,
when the closed booths glimmered white on the silent meadow.
"Yes, it is all a pack of lies," said a thoughtful Catholic, "but what
is one to do? A man cannot believe in religion--and yet how to live
without it? The more I stay away from mass the more I want and need
it. Think of the comfort these peasants take with their San Isidro!"
The moonlight shone serene and beautiful on those patched, shabby
tents, transforming them to silver.